NGHIÊN cứu SO SÁNH CHIẾN lược LỊCH sự KHI PHÀN nàn TRONG văn hóa mỹ và văn hóa VIỆT

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1.1. Rationale
As the world is becoming more and more developed, there exist so many things which
need to be studied and discovered. Linguistic study, however, is still far from satisfactory.
In the last few decades of the 20
th
century, there have been many linguistic researches so
far but their concerns were only with the forms of language systems which are studied and
explained apart from their functions in relation to social situations. Additionally, their
attention was basically paid to structural theories on which the small units were arranged
and combined into the larger ones. Recently, within linguistics, there was a shift of
emphasis from an almost exclusive concern with formal aspects of language (structural
linguistics and generative transformational grammar) to a growing interest in language use.
The study of linguistic pragmatics holds for not only linguists but also language teachers
and students, since the relevance of pragmatics has become increasingly clear to linguists,
which is shown by a number of researches of those such as Austin (1962), Searle (1969),
Grice (1975), Blum-Kulka (1982), Leech (1983), Levinson (1983), Clarj (1979), Cohen
(1996), Yule (1996) so on and so forth.
Although the scope of pragmatics is far from easy to define, the variety of research
interests and developments in the field share one basic concern: the need to account for the

rules that govern the use of language in context (Levinson, 1983). According to Blum-
Kulka (1983), one of the basic challenges for research in pragmatics is the issue of
universality: to what extent is it possible to determine the degree to which the rules that
govern the use of language in context vary from culture to culture and from language to
language? In particular, the issue of universality is relevant in the context of speech act
studies.
With a hope to contribute to the area of contrastive pragmatics, a modest attempt was made
to carry out a comparative study on politeness strategies in the speech act of complaining

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in American and Vietnamese cultures. There are two reasons to do so. Firstly, many
studies regarding the speech act of request, giving and receiving compliments, promising
or addressing terms and so on have been carried out in Vietnam and in other interlanguage
of English learners of different language backgrounds, but little attention is paid to the
speech act of complaining which is used to express common feelings like pain, discontent
or dissatisfaction about something. In other words, complaining is an area that not much
research has been dedicated. This is surprising because everyone complains sometimes and
some people seem to complain all the time. We frequently hear others or ourselves
complain about the weather, a test they have just taken, about their jobs, their economic
status, traffic, other’s behaviors, etc. So often are these remarks and expressions of
dissatisfaction that we do not notice how much these expressions are used and how face –
threatening those speech acts are. And although complaints are a common feature of our
everyday lives, it is surprising the little attention that has been paid to this topic. Secondly,
the strategies the Vietnamese choose to carry out those speech acts are not the same as
those the American or people from different societies do since the ways in which a given
function is realized may differ from one language to another, even though communicative
functions appear to exist across languages. In other words, they may speak in different
ways – not only because they use different linguistic codes, involving different lexicons
and different grammars, but also because their ways of using the codes are different
(Wierzbicka, 1991: 67) and therefore, a systematic and scientific observation on

complaining strategies is virtually necessary.
1.2. Aims of the study
In the light of contrastive pragmatics, this study aims at comparing and contrasting
different linguistic politeness strategies in the speech act of complaining of American and
Vietnamese speakers in relation to the social factors assigned in the contexts studied.
1.3. Research questions
With a view to achieving the aims of the study, the research questions will be addressed as
follows:

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1. What are the linguistic politeness strategies used by American speakers in
realizing complaints in the contexts studied?
2. What are the linguistic politeness strategies used by Vietnamese speakers in
realizing complaints in the contexts studied?
3. How are American speakers similar to and different from Vietnamese
speakers with respect to the choice of linguistic politeness strategies in
realizing complaints in the contexts studied?
1.4. Scope of the study
Due to the scope of the M.A. thesis, limited time and experience, it is impossible to cover
all contrastive pragmatic matters. This study just focuses mainly on comparing and
contrasting the politeness strategies used in the speech act of complaining in American and
Vietnamese cultures basing on the analysis of the data collected from DCT in relation to
the three social parameters (P, D and R) in the contexts studied.
As a result, the theoretical frameworks applied to this study are the speech act theory,
politeness theory, indirectness and the social factors affecting politeness in interaction. In
other words, the study focuses on verbal communication, but other important factors such
as non-linguistic factors (facial expression, gestures, eye contact, etc.), paralinguistic
factors (intonation, pause, speed of speech, etc.) will not be taken into account.
1.5. Method of the study
The method used in this study include quantitative and qualitative. The data were collected

via questionnaires namely the Discourse Completion Task (DCT), which was logically and
empirically validated before it is used as a data collection instrument. The instrument to
construct validation which is called Metapragmatic Questionnaire (MPQ) is used to tap
individual assessment of relative Power (P), social Distance (D) and the severity of face –
threatening of complaints (R). Then, data will be analysed using Independent Samples t-
test of SPSS Statistical Package 13.0.

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Both MPQ and DCT were conducted on the same subjects including two groups: 1) thirty
American speakers and 2) thirty Vietnamese speakers.
1.6. Organization of the study
This study is divided into five chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 presents an overview of the study in which the rationale for the research, the
aims, the research questions, the scope of the study, the research method as well as the
organization of the study were briefly presented.
Chapter 2 reviews the theoretical issues relevant to the study including speech acts and the
speech act of complaining. Then, the notions of politeness and indirectness in complaining
as well as some previous studies on complaining are discussed.
Chapter 3 discusses issues of methodology and outlines the study design, data collection
instruments, reliability and validity test of the data collection instruments, procedure of
data collection, selection of subjects and analytical framework
Chapter 4 presents the data analysis and discusses the findings on the choice of politeness
strategies used by American and Vietnamese speakers in relation to the variables of Power
(P), Social Distance (D) and Ranking of Imposition (R) in the contexts under studied.
Chapter 5 provides an overview of major findings and interpretations, implications,
limitations and suggestions for further research.


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To establish the framework of the theoretical background from which my area of
investigation lays foundation and operates, this chapter has two - fold intent. Firstly, it
deals with the speech act theory and speech act of complaining. Secondly, it highlights the
theory of politeness, especially three social variables (P, D and R) affecting politeness in
interaction.
2.1. The speech act
2.1.1. The speech act theory
Of all the issues in the general theory of language usage, the speech act theory has
probably aroused the widest interest. It has undergone serious investigation by different
theorists such as Austin (1962), Grice (1957, 1975), Hymes (1964), Searl (1969), Levinson
(1983), Brown and Yule (1983), Yule (1996). Blum-Kulka and Kasper (1982:2) emphasize
that “the study of speech acts is to remain a central concern of pragmatics, especially
cross-cultural pragmatics”
2.1.1.1. Austin’s theory
The speech act theory is originally developed by the Oxford philosopher of language J.L.
Austin. In his famous work, "How to do things with words," Austin outlines his theory of
speech acts and the concept of performative language, in which to say something is to do
something.
To make the statement “I promise that p” (in which p is the propositional content of the
utterance) is to perform the act of promising as opposed to making a statement that may be
judged true or false. Performatives cannot be true or false, only felicitous or infelicitous.

Austin creates a clear distinction between performatives and constantives, statements that
attempt to describe reality and can be judged true or false, but he eventually comes to the

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conclusion that most utterances, at their base, are performative in nature. That is, the
speaker is nearly always doing something by saying something.
For Austin, what the speaker is doing is creating social realities within certain social
contexts. For example, using an explicit performative, to say “I now pronounce you man
and wife” in the context of a wedding, in which one is marrying two people, is to create a
social reality, i.e. in this case a married couple.
Austin describes three characteristics, or acts, of statements that begin with the building
blocks of words and end with the effects those words have on an audience.
• Locutionary acts: “roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with a certain
‘meaning´ in the traditional sense.”
• Illocutionary acts: “such as informing, ordering, warning, undertaking, &
conceding, i.e. utterances which have a certain (conventional) force.”
• Perlocutionary acts: “what we bring about or achieve by saying something, such
as convincing, persuading, deterring, and even, say, surprising or misleading”
(1962: 109).
For example, S says to H "I will come tomorrow" (a promise).
o Since this is a well-formed, meaningful English sentence, a successful
locutionary act has been performed if S knows English.
o A successful illocutionary act (promise) has been performed if S intends to
come tomorrow, believes she can come tomorrow, thinks she wouldn't
normally come tomorrow, thinks H would like her to come tomorrow, and
intends to place herself under an obligation to come tomorrow and if both S
and H understand the sentence, are normal human beings, and are in normal
circumstances.

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o A successful perlocutionary act (persuasion) has been performed if H is
convinced that S will come tomorrow.
Austin focuses on illocutionary acts, maintaining that here we might find the “force” of a
statement and demonstrate its performative nature. Based on performative verbs, he
presents taxonomy consisting of five categories of speech acts:
• Verdictives are typified by the giving of a verdict by a jury, arbitrator or umpire
(e.g. grade, estimate, diagnose)
• Exercitives are the exercising of power, rights or influence (e.g. appoint, order,
warn)
• Commissives refer to the assuming of obligation or giving of an undertaking (e.g.
promise, undertake)
• Behabitives relate to attitudes and social behaviour (e.g. apologize, compliment,
congratulate)
• Expositives address the clarifying of reasons, arguments or expressing viewpoints
(e.g. assume, concede, suggest)
For example, to say “Don’t run with scissors” has the force of a warning when spoken in a
certain context. This utterance may be stated in an explicitly performative way, e.g., “I
warn you, don’t run with scissors.” This statement is neither true nor false. Instead, it
creates a warning. By hearing the statement, and understanding it as a warning, the auditor
is warned, which is not to say that the auditor must or will act in any particular way
regarding the warning.
2.1.1.2. Searle’s theory
According to Searle (1969, 23-6), language is a part of a theory of action and there are
three different kinds of act:

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• Utterance acts (was called locutionary acts by Austin) consist of the verbal
employment of units of expression such as words and sentences.
• Propositional acts are those matters having to do with referring and predicting
• Illocutionary acts have to do with the intents of speakers such as stating,

questioning, promising or commanding
An utterance act may have no propositional content, as in an example like “Damn”.
However, an illocutionary act must be both a propositional act and an utterance act.
Searle (1975) sets up the following classification of illocutionary speech acts which seems
to be clear and useful. From his point of view, the basic for categorizing speech acts is the
illocutionary point or the purpose of the act, from the speaker’s perspective.
• Representatives – the speaker is committed to the truth of a proposition: affirm,
believe, conclude, deny, report
• Directives – the speaker tries to get the hearer to do something: ask, challenge,
command, dare, insist, request
• Commissives – the speaker is committed to a (future) course of action: guarantee,
pledge, promise, swear, vow
• Expressives – the speaker expresses an attitude about a state of affairs: apologize,
deplore, congratulate, regret, thank, welcome
• Declarations – the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or
situation, solely by making the utterance: I baptize you, I resign, I sentence you to
be hanged by the neck until you be dead, I name this ship, etc.
He also argues that each type of illocutionary acts requires certain expected or appropriate
conditions called felicity conditions. These condittions relate to the beliefs and attitudes of
the speaker and hearer and to their mutual understanding of the use of the linguistic
devices for communication. He identifies four kinds of fecilicty conditions as follows:

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1. Preparation conditions: the person performing the speech act has to have quality
to do so. Such verbs as baptize, arrest can be used only by qualified people.
2. Sincerity conditions: the speech act must be performed in a sincere manner. Verbs
such as apologize, guarantee and vow are effective only if speakers mean what they
say.
3. Propositional content conditions: the utterance must have exact content; e.g. for a
warning, the context of the utterance must be about a future event.

4. Essential conditions: the speech act has to be executed in the correct manner. For
example, by the act of uttering a promise, the speakers intends to create an
obligation to carry out the action as promised.
2.1.2. The speech act of complaining
There is already an extensive literature on the speech act of complaining (Kasper, 1981;
Brown & Levinson, 1987; Anna Wierzbicka, 1991, 2003; Olshtain & Weinbach, 1993;
Trosborg, 1995; Laforest, 2002, to cite a few). Undeniably, complaining is considered to
be the most frequently occurring communication acts. It is an action which is not
particularly dignified, because it involves something aken to feeling sorry for oneself.
Searle (1976), in his typology of speech acts, distinguishes between apology and complaint
as expressive speech acts, where the former is made to threaten the addressee's positive-
face want (See Brown & Levinson, 1987). Complaint has also been classified as a
particular speech act - in reaction to a “socially unacceptable act”- to imply severity or
directness (Brown & Levinson, 1987).
It has been further defined as a speech act to give the speaker a way to express
“displeasure, annoyance, blame, censure, threats or reprimand” as a reaction to a past or
on-going action the consequences of which are perceived by the speaker as affecting him
unfavorably. Or, complaining is an act to hold the hearer accountable for the offensive
action and possibly suggest/request a repair (Olshtain and Weinbach, 1993)

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Trosborg (1995) thinks that the speech act complaint belongs to the category of expressive
functions including moral judgements which express the speaker’s approval as well as
disapproval of the behaviour mentioned in the judgement. She defines a complaint as an
illocutionary act in which the speaker expresses his/her disapproval, negative feelings etc.
towards the state of affairs described in the proposition and for which he/she holds the
hearer responsible, either directly or indirectly. In other words, a complaint is by its very
nature designed to cause offence and it is, therefore, highly threatening to the social
relationship between speaker and hearer.
According to Boxer (1993a, 1996), people use complaints:

1. to share a specific negative evaluation, obtain agreement, and establish a common
bond between the speaker and addressee"trouble sharing" (Hatch, 1992), "troubles
talk" (Tannen, 1990). For example:
- "I can't believe I didn't get an A on this paper. I worked so hard!"
- "Same here. She doesn't give away A's very easily, that's for sure."
1. to vent anger or anxiety/let off steam
2. to open and sustain conversations
The scholar also classifies the speech act of complaints into two types:
1. Direct complaints: are addressed to a complainee who is held responsible for the
offensive action
For example: Could you be a little quieter? I’m trying to sleep
2. Indirect complaints: are given to addressees who are not responsible for the
perceived offense. Indirect complaints often open a conversation and establish
solidarity between the speakers.
For example: She never cleans up after her. Isn’t that horrible?

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Meanwhile, in the view of Anna Wierbicka (2003), complaining belongs to the same group
with moaning, exclaiming, protesting, objecting, bemoaning, and lamenting. People often
complain to:
1. say that something bad is happening (E.g. I say: something bad is happening to me)
2. express the feeling caused by this (E.g. I feel something bad because of that)
3. appeal for something like pity or sympathy (E.g. I want someone to feel sorry for
me because of that)
Moaning and exclaiming have some differences in comparison with complaining. A person
who is alone might moan or exclaim but he/she would be unlikely to complain (there
would seem to be no point in doing so if there was no one there to hear and feel sorry for
one). Feeling sorry for oneself is important but it is not enough: the complainer wants to
see his/her own self-pity reflected in the pity of the complainee.
The fecility conditions of this speech act might be stated as:

1. Preparing condition - X (which is wrong) happens to S.
- H can or S believes that H is able to
share with S’s dissatisfaction.
2. Executive condition
- S shows his/her dissatisfaction about X.
- H does Y to show his/her pity or
sympathy to S’s.
3. Sincerity condition
- S believes that his dissatisfaction is
reasonable.
4. Fulfillment condition - H will reach Z by doing Y to show
his/her pity or sympathy.
- S’s state will be changed in some way.
From the above mentioned felicity conditions of complaining, S may perform an FTA
(Face Threatening Act) if:
• H doesn’t or can’t be able to share with S’s problem, or

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• S performs the act of complaining without taking into consideration whether H is
able to do something to show his/her pity to S’s expectation, or
• H does understand S’s problem but really does nothing to show his/her sympathy.
In the event that all these conditions are met, the speech act of complaining is said to be
felicitous.
2.3. Issues of politeness and indirectness
2.3.1. The politeness theory
In pragmatics, the term “politeness” does not refer to the social rules of behaviour such as
letting people go first through a door, or wipping one’s mouth on the serviette rather than
on the back of one’s hand. It refers to the choices that are made in language use, the
linguistic expressions that give people space and show a friendly attitude to them.
Politeness which is a universal phenomenon in every cultural linguistic community have

attracted a lot of due attention from linguistics as well as sociologists. This is the reason
why politeness principles have been considered to have wide descriptive power in respect
of language use (Lakoff, 1972, 1973), to be major determinants or linguistic behaviour
(Leech, 1983), and to have universal status (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987). Their
politeness theories are all linked somehow to Grice’s Cooperative Principle. However,
there are some differences across their main approaches. Grice sets the ideal standard for
polite acts to refer, meanwhile Lakoff proposes the principles of politeness in
communication in the form of do’s and don’t’s. Brown and Levinson’s approach seems to
be the most elaborate one in which they specify the necessary strategies to encounter Face
Threatening Acts (FTAs) in communication.
2.3.1.1. Grice’s cooperative principle
The English language philosopher Paul Grice (1967) proposes that in ordinary
conversation, speakers and hearers share a cooperative principle, the content of which is to
“make your conversational contribution such as required, at the stage at which it occurs,

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by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”.
Grice goes on to describe four categories of special of this principle, which he calls
maxims which are listed here: quantity, quality, relation, and manner.
Maxims of quantity

1. Make your contribution as informative as
required.
2. Do not make your contribution more
informative than is required.
Maxims of quality
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.
Maxim of relation

1. Be relevant.
Maxims of manner

Be perspicuous
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
4. Be orderly.
2.3.1.2. Lakoff and Leech’s politeness theory
R. Lakoff (1972) asks why it is that it is considered polite for an English-speaking hostess
to offer a guest something to eat with (1a), that if she used (1b) it would be accounted
familiar, and that use of (1c) for the same purpose would be considered downright rude.
1a. You must have some of this fruitcake
1b. You should have some of this fruitcake
1c. You may have some of this fruitcake
After all, on the face of it, (1a) would appear to be more overbearing, and (1c) less
imposing. Why isn’t (1c) the more polite offer?

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Participants in a conversation can choose to be polite; they can choose to avoid being rude;
or they can choose to do as they please conversationally with utter disregard for other’s
feelings and wishes.
In her opinion, politeness is “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate
interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human
interchange”
Lakoff (1973b) also describes three different rules a speaker might follow in choosing to
be polite:
Rule 1: Don’t impose, which is the most formal politeness rule, is appropriate in situations
in which there is acknowledged difference in power and status between the participants,
such as between a student and a dean, or between a factory worker and the vice – president

in charge of personnel. A speaker (S) who is being polite according to this rule will avoid,
or ask permission or apologize for making the addressee (A) do anything which A does not
want to do. This includes acts which distract A from whatever A may be doing or thinking
about when S addresses him or her.
Rule 2: Offer options, which is a more informal politeness rule, is appropriate to situations
in which the participants have approximately equal status and power, but are not socially
close, for example, the relationship between a businessperson and a new client in a
business, or the relationship between two strangers sharing a semiprivate room in a
hospital. Offering options means expressing oneself in such a way that one’s opnion or
request can be ignored without being contradicted or rejected, for example, saying “I
wonder if it would help to get a perm” or “Maybe you should get a perm”, instead of “You
should get a perm”. Generally, if S wishes to persuade A of some view or course of action,
S will phrase his speech so that A does not have to acknowledge S’s intent.
Rule 3: Encourage feelings of camaraderie, which is for friendly or intimate politeness, is
appropriate to intimates or close friends. Even lovers have to abide by certain “politeness”
norms with each other, or their relationship will come unstuck, as evidenced by the fact
that if a spouse or lover or best friend chose to display formal politeness behaviour, the

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significant other would interpret it as being given the cold shoulder, and wonder what had
caused the relationship to change. In intimate politeness, almost any topic of conversation
is fair game, assuming that with a close friend, one should be able to discuss anything.
In contrast to formal politeness, the governing principle here is not only to show an active
interest in the other, by asking personal questions and making personal remarks, but also to
show regard and trust by being open about the details of one’s own life, experiences,
feelings and the like. Participants use intimate forms of address, including nicknames and
in some contexts, abusive epithets.
As a reaction to the shortcomings of Lakoff’s rules, Leech (1983) formulates a more
comprehensive framework . He argues that there is a Politeness Principle that works in
conjunction with the Cooperative Principle and identifies six associated interpersonal

politeness maxims basing on the concepts “cost” and “benefit”
1. The Tact maxim: “minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other;
maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other”
2. The Generosity maxim: “minimize the expression of benefit to self; maximize the
expression of cost to self”.
3. The Approbation maxim: “'minimize the expression of beliefs which express
dispraise of other; maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of
other”.
4. The Modesty maxim: “minimize the expression of praise of self; maximize the
expression of dispraise of self”.
5. The Agreement maxim: “minimize the expression of disagreement between self
and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other”.
6. The Sympathy maxim: “minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize
sympathy between self and other”.
2.3.1.3. Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory

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Brown and Levinson (1978) provide a slightly different perspectives on politeness
phenomena which they have studied in more widely diverse languages and cultures. They
suggest that the origin of politeness phenomena is the same in all societies. All human
beings, in order to enter into social relationships with each other, must acknowledge the
“face” of other people.
Interestingly enough, central to their theory is the abtract notion of “face” which is derived
from that of Goffman (1955) “face-work” (the work of presenting faces to each other,
protecting our own face, and protecting the other’s face), and from that of English folk
term which ties face up with notions of being embarassed or humiliated, and “losing face”.
Brown and Levinson assume that all adult competent members of a society have:
Face, the public self-image that every member (of a society) wants to claim for
himself consisting of two related aspects:
o Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to

non-distraction, i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition.
o Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or personality (crucially
including the desire that this self-image be appreciated).
They also say that:
Face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost,
maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in
interation. In general, people cooperate (and assume each other’s
cooperation) in maintaining face in interaction, such cooperation being
based on the mutual vulnerability of face. That is, normally everyone’s
face depends on everyone else’s being maintained, and since people
can be expected to defend their faces if threatened, and in defending
their own to threaten others’ faces, it is in general in every
participant’s best interest to maintain each other’s face.

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They point out that it is a universal characteristic across cultures that speakers should
respect each others’ expectation regarding self-image, take account of their feelings, and
avoid Face Threatening Acts (FTAs – acts which threaten the face wants of the speaker,
the hearer, or both of them). They also propose 4 kinds of FTAs:
1. Acts threatening to the hearer’s negative face by indicating (potentially) that the
speaker does not intend to avoid impeding hearer’s freedom of action. E.g.
ordering, suggesting, advising, reminding, threatening, warning, offering,
promisng, complimenting
2. Acts threatening to the hearer’s positive face by indicating (potentially) that the
speaker does not care about the addressee’s feeling, wants, etc. – that in some
important respect, he does not want hearer’s wants. E.g. disapproving, contempting,
complaining, criticizing, disagreeing, accusing and raising taboo topics
3. Acts threatening to the speaker’s negative face. E.g. accepting an offer, accepting
thanks, excusing, promising unwillingly
4. Acts threatening to the speaker’s positive face. E.g. apologizing, accepting

compliments, and confessing
Brown and Levinson also outline five macrostrategies that speakers can seek to avoid these
above Face Threatening Acts.
Figure 1: The possible strategies for doing FTAs
1. without redressive action, baldly
on record 2. positive
politeness

Do the FTA with redressive action
4. off record 3. negative
politeness

5. Don’t do the FTA

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From the above figure, it is clear to see that in the context of the mutual vunerability of
face, the speaker has two choices: he/she may seek to avoid the Face Threatening Act
(Don’t do the FTA) or decide to Do the FTA.
The speaker goes on record in doing an act A, if his/her statement is directly addressed to
the hearer. Doing an act on record consists of doing it:
- without redressive (baldly) – the most clear, unobscure possible way. E.g. for a
request, saying “Do X!”
- or with redressive action – giving “Face” to the hearer to prevent from the face
damage of the FTA with some alterations and additions. Such action takes one of
two forms, relying on which aspect of face (positive or negative) is being
emphasized.
Positive politeness is oriented toward the positive face of the hearer, the so-called positive
self-image. As the speaker wants at least some of the hearer’ s wants, the potential face
threat of an act is mitigated in this case.
Negative politeness is oriented toward the negative face of the hearer, marked by self-

effacement, formality and restraint. The negative politeness strategies ensures that the
speaker recognizes and respects the hearer’s negative face wants and will not violate the
hearer’s freedom of action.
On the contrary, the speaker goes off in doing an act of A, if there is “more than one
unambiguous attributable intention”. In other words, the statement that the speaker makes
is indirectly addressed to the hearer, avoiding unequivocal impositions. The choice of this
strategy is marked by the employ of metaphor, irony, rhetorical questions,
understatements, tautologies and all kinds of hints.
The authors propose 15 strategies for achieving positive politeness and 10 for negative
strategies as follows:


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Positive Politeness Strategies
1. Notice, attend to H
2. Exaggerate
3. Intensify interest to H
4. Use in-group identity markers
5. Seek agreement
6. Avoid disagreement
7. Presuppose, assert common
ground
8. Joke
9. Show concern for H’s wants
10. Offer, promise
11. Be optimistic
12. Include both S and H in the
activity
13. Give reasons
14. Assume or assert reciprocity

15. Give gifts

Negative Politeness Strategies
1. Be conventionally indirect
2. Question, hedge
3. Be pessimistic
4. Minimize the imposition
5. Give deference
6. Apologize
7. Impersonalize S and H
8. State FTA as a general rule
9. Nominalize
10. Go on record as incurring a
debt or off record as
indebting H
However, Brown and Levinson's theory of politeness has been criticized as not being
universally valid, by linguists working with East-Asian languages, including Japanese.
Matsumoto (1988) and Ide (1989) claim that Brown and Levinson assume the speaker's
volitional use of language, which allows the speaker's creative use of face-maintaining
strategies toward the addressee. In East Asian cultures like Japan, politeness is achieved
not so much on the basis of volition as on discernment (wakimae, finding one's place), or
prescribed social norms. Wakimae is oriented towards the need for acknowledgment of the
positions or roles of all the participants as well as adherence to formality norms appropriate
to the particular situation.
Japanese is perhaps the most widely known example of a language that encodes politeness
at its very core. Japanese has two main levels of politeness, one for intimate acquaintances,
family and friends, and one for other groups, and verb morphology reflects these levels.

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Besides that, some verbs have special hyper-polite forms. This happens also with some

nouns and interrogative pronouns. Japanese also employs different personal pronouns for
each person according to gender, age, rank, degree of acquaintance, and other cultural
factors.
2.3.2. Social factors affecting politeness in interaction
When we interact with other people, the language that we use is influenced by a number of
factors which identify our many “faces” in society. Brown and Levinson (1987:74)
propose three independent variables that have a systematic impact on the choice of
appropriate politeness strategies.
• The social distance (D) of S and H (a symmetric relation)
• The relative “power” (P) of S and H (an asymmetric relation)
• The absolute ranking (R) of imposition in the particular culture
The social distance (D) is a symmetric social dimension of similarity/difference within
which S and H stand for the purposes of this act. In some situations, D is based on a
evaluation of frequency of interaction and the types of material and non-material goods
(embracing face) between S and H. The evaluation will be usually measures of social
distance relied on stable social attributes.
The relative power (P) which is an asymmetric social dimension is the degree to which H
can impose his own plans and his own self – evaluation (face) at the expense of S’s plans
and self – evaluation. Generally, there are two sources of P, either of which may be
authorized or unauthorized – material control (over economic distribution and physical
force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others, by virtue of metaphysical
forces subcribed to by those others.
The absolute ranking (R) of imposition which is situationally and cuturally defined is the
degree to which there is an interference in S’s wants or self- determination or approval (S’s
negative and positive wants). There are normally two scales or ranks which are identifiable

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for negative – face FTAs: a ranking of impositions in proportion to the expenditure of
services (including the time provision) and good (including non –material goods such as
information, regard expression and other face payments). As for positive – face FTA, the

ranking of imposition embraces an assessment of the amount of “pain” given to H’s face,
based on the differences between H’s desired self-image and that presented in FTA.
Cultural rankings of facets of positive face (like success, niceness, beauty etc.) can be
reranked in specific circumstances, so do the negative face rankings. Besides, that there are
also personal rankings can explain why some people object to certain kinds of FTAs and
some do not.
Obviously, the three social variables have a systematic effect on the choice of polite
expression. Brown and Levinson also suggest the equation to compute the seriousness (or
weightiness) of the FTAs, since that will determine the appropriate type of strategy to be
used:
Wx = D (S, H) + P (H, S) + Rx
Where x is the FTA
The weightiness of the intended FTA is a composite of the social distance D between S and
H, the power, P, that H weilds over S and R, the degree to which x constitutes an
imposition. The greater the value of W, the closer should be the utterance to strategy 5 –
Don’t do the FTA. The smaller the value of W, the closer it should be to strategy 1 – Do
the FTA baldly with no redressive action.
Moverover, the social dimensions P, D, R are called different names by different authors.
Power can be named social power, status, dominance or authority.
Dominance pertains to the status relationship between the participants, which was specified
either by the authority of one interactant over the other, or by the lack of authority in the
case of persons of equal status (Trosborg, A. 1995: 148).

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Distance can be understood as solidarity, closeness, familarity or relational intimacy
(Spencer – Oatey, 1996: 5-9).
2.3.3. Politeness and indirectness
The notions of indirectness and politeness play a crucial role in the negotiation of face
during the realization of speech acts. Many cross-linguistic studies have argued for a
positive correlation between politeness and linguistic indirectness.

It has been proposed in some researches that the chief motivation for using indirect forms
is politeness (i.e. Brown and Levinson, 1978; Searle, 1979). The relationship between
indirectness and politeness is studied by a number of pragmaticists such as Leech (1983),
Brown and Levinson (1983, 1987), Blum-Kulka (1987), LoCastro (2003).
For example, according to the tact maxim (Leech, 1983), the speakers may increase the
degree of politeness by using a more and more indirect kind of illocution while keeping the
same propositional content. He also states that “indirect illocutions tend to be more polite
(a) because they increase the degree of optionality, and (b) because the more indirect an
illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be”. In other words, the
degree of politeness of the speaker is closely related to that of optionality he gives the
hearers.
Brown and Levinson believe that there exists a close relationship between the use of
indirect speech acts and politeness. They observe that “looking just at the indirect speech
acts which are expressed by the asserting or questioning of their felicity conditions, we can
make some generations about their relative politeness” (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 134).
They also consider that the degree of indirectness is inversely proportional to the degree of
face threat. The regard negative redress (negative politeness) more polite than positive
redress (positive politeness) because the speaker expends more effort in face – preserving
work of the hearer in his use of more indirectness in speech acts.
According to LoCastro (2003), the greater the face threat, the greater the need to use
linguistic politeness, and the rmore indirectness is used. The link between indirectness and
politeness is further supported by Searle’s observation that “politeness is the most

23
prominent motivation for indirectness in requests, and certain forms tend to become the
conventionally polite ways of making indirect requests” (1975: 76).
However, there are also studies arguing that indirectness and politeness are different
dimensions. Blum-Kulka (1987) examined in a series of experiments designed to tap native
speakers’ perception of politeness and indirectness in requests in Hebrew and English and
found that indirectness does not necessarily imply politeness. According to Blum-Kulka,

indirectness is comprised of two types: conventional indirectness (CI) which centers on
conventions of language including propositional content (literal meaning) and
pragmalinguistic form used to signal an illocutionary force, and nonconventional
indirectness (NCI) which relies heavily on the context and tends to be “open ended, both in
terms of propositional content and linguistic form as well as pragmatic force” (1989:42).
She argues that too much indirectness may be perceived as a lack of clarity which is a
marker of impoliteness.
As a matter of fact, it is not absolutely true to ascertain that indirectness communicates
politeness but rather indirectness and politeness are really interrelated, and the level of
indirectness considered as politeness is culturally bound. That is, the same degree of
indirectness can be polite for one culture but not for the other. In this study, the view is
taken that there exists a positive correlation between politeness and indirectness.
2.4. Complaining in previous studies
In a study in 1993 by Frescura, eighty three subjects provided the tape-recorded role-play
data on reactions to complaints (mostly apologies). The subjects of the study belonged in
four different groups: (a) native Italian speakers in Italy, (b) native English speakers in
Canada, (c) Italians residing in Canada, and (d) English-Canadian learners of Italian. The
respondents, after being tape-recorded in six role-play interactions, were asked to listen to
all six recordings and to provide retrospective verbal report on:
a. how close to real life they felt their performance to be;
b. how dominant they felt their interlocutor was;

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c. their sensitivity to the severity of the offense and to the tone of the complaint; and
d. their possible linguistic difficulties (for Italians in Canada and Canadian learners of
Italian).
The data were coded according to a taxonomy comprising seven semantic formulas in two
categories: (a) hearer-supportive (including formulas providing gratification and support
for the "face" of the complainers), and (b) self-supportive (including formulas uttered by
the speakers to defend and protect their own "face"). Performance was measured according

to the three dimensions of (1) production (total output of formulas, including repetitions),
(2) selection (types of formulas used, excluding repetitions), and (3) intensity of formulas
produced. The results, after data analysis, revealed that native speakers of Italian had an
overall preference for the self-supportive category of formulas; native speakers of English,
however, had a preference for the hearer-supportive category. Moreover, Canadian learners
of Italian did not indicate any preference; by way of contrast, Italian-Canadian speakers,
though diverging some from the native norm, gave indication of language maintenance as
well. Frescura had used verbal report which helped her establish, among other things, that
the learners of Italian tended to think in English first before responding to the role plays.
Arent, R. (1996) carried out an exploratory study that compares the relative frequency of
the performance and avoidance of oral complaints by 22 Chinese learners and 12 native
speakers of American English. Respondents asked to respond to three problematic
situations that were set in the same university housing complex. Audiotape role-plays,
interview data on perceived situational seriousness, and verbal report data were obtained.
Respondents were allowed to opt out, and effects of social distance, power, and type of
social contract controlled for. Found that sociopragmatic decision making for Chinese
learners and NSs of American English appears to be associated with individual perceptions
of situational seriousness and with culturally-conditioned perceptions of the flexibility of
explicit social contracts. In the car being towed situation, the Chinese learners saw it as
more serious than the Americans did. The numerous limitations of the study are listed.
Indirect complaint (IC) refers to the expression of dissatisfaction to an interlocutor about
someone or something that is not present. An indirect complaint is defined as a negative

25
evaluation wherein the addressee is neither held responsible for the perceived offense nor
capable of remedying the perceived offense. Native English speakers usually use indirect
complaints as a positive strategy for establishing points of commonality; they frequently
employ indirect complaints (ICs) in an attempt to establish rapport or solidarity between
themselves and their interlocutors. One of the early attempts at studying ICs was made by
Boxer (1993a). In Boxer's study, 295 interlocutors produced 533 indirect complaints.

Boxer identified three different types of IC themes (personal, impersonal, and trivial), and
six types of IC responses (nothing or topic switch, question, contradiction, joke/teasing,
advice/lecture, and commiseration). The study focused mainly on the role of gender, social
status, social distance, and theme in connection to ICs. Since half of interlocutors in
Boxer's study were Jewish, it was possible to investigate ethnicity. Boxer found that Jews
complain more. She also found that approximately 25% of griping sequences served to
distance the interlocutors from one another while 75% of the grippings were found to be
rapport-inspiring by a group of ten native English-speaking raters. Boxer's study found that
speakers of English often employed gripings in sequential interaction in an attempt to
establish solidarity. It was also found that women mostly commiserated with ICs, while
men contradicted or gave advice. Boxer noticed that ESL textbooks, with respect to
gender, did not include ICs or included them but did not treat them as ICs. The study,
therefore, suggested that non-native speakers (NNSs) should know that commiserating
with complaints is important in that it signals to the speaker (S) that the hearer (H) is
supportive; this builds solidarity.
In another study by Boxer (1993b), indirect complaints as well as commiseration in
conversations between Japanese ESL learners and their E1 peers were studied. Boxer used
spontaneous speech or field notes. In this study, 295 interlocutors were recorded in
spontaneous conversation (195 women and 100 men). The issue that emerged was that of
how to respond to an indirect complaint. The results showed that natives used (a)
joking/teasing, (b) nonsubstantive reply ("hmn"), (c) question, (d) advice/lecture, (e)
contradiction, and (f) commiseration. With NSs most responses were commiseration with
some questioning. For NNSs, the major category was nonsubstantive, sometimes
accompanied by some questioning and some commiseration. The study concluded that the